PICTURE: Moscow Show Debut for First Ka-62

Russian Helicopters is getting ready to present the first prototype Ka-62 medium twin in the static display at the MAKS 2013 airshow, which opens on August 27. MAKS is being held at Zhukovsky aerodrome, outside Moscow, home of the Gromov Flight Research Institute - which is handy, because that is where the Ka-62 will be flight tested.

Photo: Russian Helicopters

Developed by the Kamov Design Bureau in Moscow and produced by Progress Arsenyev Aviation in the Russian Far East, the Ka-62 is an important program for the consolidated and resurgent Russian Helicopters. It is the company's entrant in the buoyant and lucrative medium helicopter market and its most international product yet.

The Ka-62 is powered by a pair of French Turbomeca Ardiden 3G turboshafts, driving a transmission made by Austrian firm Zoerkler, while France's Zodiac Aerospace has supplied the fuel system. The glass-cockpit avionics are Russian, supplied by Transas, and include a navigation system that works with GPS, Russian Glonass and may eventually use Europe's Galileo satellite system.

Unconventional for a Kamov, with its single main rotor, the Ka-62 even "borrows" the fenestron fan-in-fin anti-torque concept pioneered by Aerospatiale/Eurocopter, although it has a tailwheel landing gear more reminiscent of Sikorsky's SH/MH-60 Seahawk shipboard helicopter.

And even the customers are international, with Brazilan company Atlas Taxi Aero placing a launch order for seven Ka-62s for offshore transport in support of Brazilian oil comonay Petrobras.